DIY Mini Golf – as designed by 6 and 9 year-olds

As you may know I was left with an astronomical amount of pvc pipe after a failed spray paint tent project the other week, so I have racked my brain to come up with ideas to put it to good use.

Last weekend some of my daughter’s friends came over and we made the pvc jewelry stands from this post. While the girls and I were working, some of the neighbourhood boys came by to see what we were up to (if my garage doors are open, people often stop by to see what’s happening). They immediately wanted to join in and build something as well – so we had a mini brain storm session about what we might be able to build that would incorporate pvc pipe. The boys had some great ideas, but so as not to take away from my time with the girls, I told the boys they had to go draw up building plans so that we had something we could work with.

This is what they came back with:

Lachlan is 9 and gave me an aerial view to work from and William, who is 6, drew a profile view for accuracy in interpretation.

Isn’t this fantastic!

Isak drew up a bike car wash, but I’ll share his blueprints once I’ve had a chance to build it for him.

Coincidentally (serendipitously) Jaime at That’s My Letter was also featuring a mini golf course on her blog last weekend – tell me the stars weren’t all lining up telling me this NEEDED to be built!

So, off I went to get the remaining supplies for the boys’ DIY mini golf course.

Jaime used slightly different measurements and didn’t use pvc piping as a border, so if you want her plans please click over here.

For my DIY mini golf I asked the boys at Home Depot to cut a 4′ x 8′ piece of 3/4″ plywood into two 2-foot pieces.

I also picked up enough astro turf while I was there to cover both boards.

This is a FANTASTIC project to use up scrap 2×4 wood; I used 5 lengths cut (or pieced together) to 24″ and spread them out evenly across the bottom of my plywood. Attach with 2″ deck screws.

Next, draw a circle where you want your hole to be, drill a hole and cut it out with a jig saw. My hole is smaller than a margarine container, but large enough for a golf ball to easily fall through. I think I traced the lid from a quart can of paint?

Cover your DIY mini golf course with the astro turf and staple into place using industrial staples.

You will be able to feel where the hole is through the turf – once you do, cut an “X” through the centre of it and staple the pieces back underneath your course.

As it turned out, my 3/4″ pvc was a bit too low to keep the golf ball inbounds – or rather it did, but the kids shot hard enough that more often than not the ball hit the pvc and bounced out so I decided to cut some tiny scrap pieces of wood 1″ by 3/4″ to raise the pvc rail slightly. These were attached with 2″ deck screws as well with plumbing elbows at the corners.

I wouldn’t be a good worker if I didn’t follow the engineer’s/architect’s plans – so the boys helped me design and attach the various obstacles that ran throughout our DIY mini golf course.

Size, placement and even the attaching was done by the boys (don’t worry, I supervised closely when they used the drill).

These two triangle obstacles weren’t enough to stop William, so we had to add more:

Above you see how we set the second course to “L” the first then left an opening as a “sand pit”. The first hole became the demerit hole and the second one was the one everyone was shooting for.

(side note: the pvc is really easy to remove and re-attach, so while we set ours up as an “L” – we can easily change this up to become a 16′ straightaway for long putts).

Those small sections of pipe were attached with 2″ deck screws as well, but I left them a bit looser so that the challenge could be ramped up if the game became too easy:

This was so easy to build and took about 3 hours to make.

DIY Mini Golf breakdown:

3/4″ plywood $37

2″ deck screws $0 (already had)

3/4″ pvc pipe $0 (already had)

scrap 2″x4″ wood $0 (already had)

industrial staples $0 (already had)

astro turf to cover 24″ by 16′ $42

Total: $79

The benefit of using the pvc (besides helping me to find a use for it) is that it gives you a handle to carry the DIY mini golf with. If your spacers are evenly distributed and fairly close together (say 12-14″), it makes a solid handle and adds considerably less weight than having 2×4 sides (per Jaime’s plans).

The kids have used it EVERY SINGLE DAY. I made some pvc and 2×2 putters to leave next to it and now it sits in the easement behind my house for everyone to play with.

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